The Sport of DraftKings

DraftKings’ new ‘first-of-its-kind’ Sportsbook facility has opened in Scottsdale, Arizona, featuring 3,400 square feet of video walls driven by two tvONE CORIOmaster2 video processors. For the first time ever, two powerful CORIOmaster2 units are being ‘cascaded’ to offer DraftKings more inputs and outputs than ever before.

Constructed during 2023, the Scottsdale DraftKings Sportsbook is located adjacent to the 36-hole TPC Scottsdale golf complex. The modern building offers 13,000 square feet of indoor space, which includes 32 betting kiosks, six windows to place bets, and wraparound LED screens, allowing customers to watch live sports action and related video from practically any seat or space.

Agility AVL’s Art Martinez and his team were engaged to specify and install a complete AV solution for the project, designing and delivering audio, LED, control, video processing and displays. “This was a first of its kind for DraftKings and PGA in terms of partnering to build a completely standalone Sportsbook which is not attached to a casino or hotel, and they wanted to go big. With the large amount of video wall space, we chose the CORIOmaster2 as our video processing solution simply because it’s the best out there in terms of user friendliness, power, and overall cost.”

Martinez specified Transtech LED for all the screens, installing twelve 2.4mm pixel pitch screens ranging from 11.8’x7.8′ to 53’x9′ in size. A further eleven 3.9mm pixel pitch screens are rigged ranging with the largest measuring 21.3’x4.9′ and including seven 10’x9.8″ tickers. They were sourced from Wright Hospitality and US Distributor, Legends. “We chose AMX as our control system because of its reliability in the market,” adds Martinez.

“Being a Sportsbook, the primary focus of the displayed content is sports, via DirecTV,” he continues, “but they are also using media servers for their marketing as well as other content. Initially, there were challenges in relation to the number of inputs/outputs that they needed, but we challenged tvONE to do something they never had before with the CORIOmaster2 – cascade two machines – and it worked flawlessly! The support from tvONE was amazing.”

The day-to-day operations at the Sportsbook are being taken care of by the venue’s technical team, which involved a training period by the Advanced LED and the Agility AVL team. “We provided service support both locally and remotely,” explains Martinez. “The CORIOmaster2 video processors are running the entire video system with 32 DirecTV receivers, 4 Cox receivers, and 12 NUC PCs. The fact that this is a standalone Sportsbook itself is an amazing experience for all the folks that live in the Scottsdale area, but for them to also see LED and sports on this scale is truly amazing.”

Nick Frush, Regional Sales Manager, West and Southwest at tvONE comments: “This is a monumental accomplishment by tvONE engineering and Regional Field support, working with Art and his team at Agility AVL to achieve great things at DraftKings Scottsdale. I’d like to thank the entire team for their vision in creating an exciting destination with incredible visuals using CORIOmaster2.”

“We’re thrilled to celebrate the opening of the DraftKings Sportsbook at TPC Scottsdale, a location that showcases the special collaboration between DraftKings and PGA TOUR while featuring a number of customer-centric amenities true to the DraftKings brand,” said Jason Robins, DraftKings’ Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder. “We look forward to welcoming in locals and visitors to experience DraftKings in a new way and enjoy the unmatched service.”

Martinez thanks Nick Frush at tvONE, Mark Wright from Wright Hospitality Group, Keith Hanak at Legends Hospitality Group, Transtech LED’s Engine Xu, and Tony Zxu, Kerri Zimmerman at Newline Displays, Steve Gorski at SG Western Group, the DraftKings team including Frank Kunovic, Carmen DiMichele, Joel Soukup, Jillian Hawkins and Meahgan Manzi, and all of the installers and technical team including Josh Martinez, Mack Montoya, Adam Perez, Nate Vitelle, Ryan Bentley, Darrin Oxford and Lucas Beck.